New Dickinson playground to blend with nature

Nanci G. Hutson

Updated 10:59 pm, Thursday, October 25, 2012

NEWTOWN -- A symphony composed of children's laughter mingling with the notes of Mother Nature is music like no other.

With that in mind, Parks & Recreation Director Amy Mangold recruited a landscape designer to work with her on a creative approach to replace a treasured community centerpiece -- the 20-year-old wooden castle-style playscape at Dickinson Park.

Together they have composed a playground that will not only stretch young children's limbs but also their imaginations.

Mangold was in high school when the first community-built and financed playground was erected. Then-coordinator Carol Ross said she lost a boot in the mud and she thinks it remains embedded somewhere in that sprawling structure.

More Information

New playground
Will be on 30-acre Dickinson Park, Elm Street, Newtown.
Plans to go to bid by end of year.
An estimated $430,000 is budgeted into the 2013-2014 capital plan.
Will spread over about 1.5 acres, with natural elements, climbing stones, a sand and water area and built-in musical instruments.
Will replace FunSpace, a 20-year-old, community-built wooden playscape,

Moon and star designs that adorn the inside of a covered bridge were installed by one of Mangold's family members.

Well-versed in the nostalgia that surrounds the now out-dated FunSpace, Mangold intends with the new playground to incorporate some of those special elements, not as play spaces but as welcoming structures and passageways.

"It's a classic,'' Mangold said of the current playground that though deteriorating still has features she'd like to preserve.

"We really want to make this a family destination,'' Mangold said.

The new, 1.5-acre playground is not only a necessity based on current safety standards -- pressurized wood treatments are no longer deemed suitable playground equipment -- but a chance to be accessible to children with various disabilities.

In addition, the design for the new playground by local resident and landscape designer Billie Cohen is arranged to blend into the environment.

Climbing rocks, a log balance beam, wood towers, bridges, even an oversized, stand-in-place xylophone, as well as traditional swings, slides and twirling apparatus, will offer children chances to play and experience outdoors in ways they might never have before, she said.

The playground project has been on the agenda for five years, but the economy has played havoc with funding.

For the 2013-14 fiscal year, the Parks & Recreation capital plan has a budget of $430,000 for the equipment and installation. The plan is to bid the project by year's end, remove the remaining equipment in the spring and begin construction on the new one by next fall.

Ross said she will miss the old playground, a project financed and built by local residents in 1990.

As plans progress for the new one, Ross will cherish memories of the old as she hopes the new space creates similar memories for the generations to come. She appreciates that some pieces of the former will be included in the new playground.

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"It was a very exciting part of our life,'' Ross said of the four years she and her husband, Bill, spent coordinating the effort.